Tepotzotlán (Spanish[tepotsotla'n](help·info)) is a city and a municipality in the Mexicostate of Mexico. It is located 40 km northeast of Mexico City about a 45-minute drive along the Mexico City-Querétaro at marker number 41.[1][2][3] In Aztec times, the area was the center of a dominion that negotiated to keep most of its independence in return with being allied with the Aztec Triple Alliance. Later, it would also be part of a “Republic of the Indians,” allowing for some autonomy under Spanish rule as well, the town became a major educational center during the colonial period when the Jesuits established the College of San Francisco Javier. The college complex that grew from its beginnings in 1580 would remain an educational center until 1914.[3] Today this complex houses the Museo del Virreinato (Museum of the Vice Regal or Colonial Period), with one of the largest collections of art and other objects from this time period.[4]

The name Tepotzotlán is of Nahuatl origin and means “among humpbacks,” referring to the shape of the hills that surround this area,[3] the oldest surviving Aztec glyph for this area is found in the Ozuna Codex, which features a humpbacked person sitting on top of a hill. This is now the symbol of the municipality. Another version of the glyph shows a humpbacked person defending a “teocalli” or sacred precinct, the municipality also has a lesser-known European-style coat-of-arms. This contains the officially adopted version of the glyph in the upper part, a representation of the Arcos del Sitio, the facade of the Church of San Francisco Javier and chimneys and a tractor representing both the agriculture and industry found here. Underneath these are written the words “Libertad, Cultura y Trabajo” (Liberty, Culture and Work).[3]

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The first ethnic group was most likely the Otomi, who settled here between 2500 BCE. and 100 CE (pre-classic period).[3][5] At about 100 C. E., the Teotihuacan became ascendant, with the Otomis here subject to Teotihuacan until about 700 CE. During the period that Teotihuacan was in decline, a Nahua-Chichimeca tribe headed by Chicontonatiuh, took control of this area, along with what is now Maxuexhuacan, Chapa de Mota, and Huehuetoca. After the death of Chichontonatuih, nine other chiefs ruled this same area until 1174, after this time other Nahua and Chichimeca people began to arrive here and the rest of the Valley of Mexico. The area then came to be ruled by a chieftain named Xotlotl, who explored the valley’s lakes and took the first census ever here, counting about a million people living in the Valley of Mexico. Rule over this area passed from father to son peacefully for a number of generations until the early 14th century. Conflict with neighboring Xaltocan and Texcoco led to a number of political intrigues, including the assassination of one of the few female lords in the Valley of Mexico, Ehuatlicuetzin in 1372;[3] in the first part of the 15th century, the Aztec Empire began to consolidate and extend its power north. At this time the area was ruled by Ayactlacatzin and the area was called Xaquintehcutli. Ayactlacatzin negotiated an alliance with Moctezuma I to allow this dominion, renamed Tepotzotlán, to remain semi-independent after Azcapotzalco fell to the Triple Alliance in 1460, this arrangement stayed intact until the fall of Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521.[3][5]

Macuilxochitzin was governor of Tepotzotlán when the Spanish arrived here in 1520,[3] this dominion opposed the Spanish invasion. When the Spanish subdued the main city,[5] they destroyed everything in their path.[3]

Evangelization work was begun here in 1525 by friars Alonso de Guadalupe and Alonso de Herrero, who built a hermitage over the ruins of the old city in Tepotzotlán in the same year, the Church of San Pedro Apostol sits on the site of the hermitage today. These were followed by Toribio de Benavente Motolina and Jerónimo de Mendieta of the Franciscans. By 1547, Tepotzotlan had become a center of the spread of the new faith, with surrounding villages under its jurisdiction.[3]

Diego Nequametzin, son of Macuilxochitzin, succeeded his father and ruled under the Spanish from 1534 to 1549, but severe economic problems as well as epidemics of typhoid and smallpox decimated the population here. Eventually, the area became completely under the control of an encomienda under Juan de Ortega. When Ortega died, the land became property of the Spanish Crown, who created a “corregimiento” under the dominion of the nearby city of Cuautitlán, the Indians here were granted limited autonomy in the way of a “Republic of the Indians”, with Pedro de San Agustín as the first governor.[3]

In 1580, the first of the Jesuits arrived, eventually established three schools; one for the training of Jesuit priests in indigenous languages, a school for Indian boys called San Martín to teach Spanish, reading, writing, religion, music and trade skills, and last a college to train Jesuit novices.[3] The first two were founded completely in Tepotzotlán but the third and largest was due to the movement of priest training from the College of San Pedro y San Pablo in Mexico City to here in 1585.[3] It was named the College of San Francisco Javier and all three would be housed in the same complex, bringing Tepozotlán fame as one of the most important educational centers of New Spain,[5] this college would produce a number of famous Jesuits such as Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Francisco Javier Clavijero, Francisco Javier Alegre and Eusebio Francisco Kino.[3]

These Jesuit schools, along with the large number of haciendas and ranches that the Jesuits owned in this area, pushed both the cultural and economic development of this region north of Mexico City and would continue to do so until the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767,[3][5] after the expulsion, the school complex was ceded to regular clergy for the training of priests under the name of Real Colegio de Instrucción Retiro Voluntario y Corrección para el Clero Secular until it was abandoned permanently in the early 20th century. Tepozotlán became a municipality in 1814, patterning itself after the precepts contained in the Cadiz Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of Apatzingan, the municipality remained rural and quiet until the Mexico City-Querétaro highway was built in 1954. This highway would have a profound impact on the economic development of Tepotzotlán, making it a part of the fast-growing Mexico City Metropolitan Area from the mid-20th century on.[3]

The city of Tepotzotlán is located very close to the Mexico City-Querétaro highway, which cuts across the municipality, it is made up of the neighborhoods of San Martín, Tlacateco, Texcacoa, Capula, Las Animas, El Trébol, Ricardo Flores Magón and Puente Grande. Because of the highway and the growth of the Mexico City metropolitan area, the city is experiencing rapid growth. Population is growing an average of 3.5% annually. The highway has provided a route for commuters since it was built in the 1950s enticing people to move out of the city to here, this movement of people has accelerated since the 1985 Mexico City earthquake as the Tepotzotlán area is far less prone to violent shaking than Mexico City proper.[3]

The parts of town closest to the highway are the most developed, hosting industrial parks and housing developments.[6][7] However, the center of town has maintained it colonial-era appearance with cobblestone alleys, arcades and plazas.[1][5] There is a small, secular plaza in front of the main church, which contains a kiosk at which many cultural events take place, the municipal market is known for its food stands selling traditional dishes as quesadillas, sopes, pambazos, and tacos as well as barbacoa, and carnitas. More elaborate dishes here include cabrito, chapulines, snails and escamoles (ant eggs) which are generally available in the restaurants in town like Hostería del Convento. On weekends, tianguises pop up all over the center of the town, selling food, crafts, artwork, handcrafted furniture, tile, baskets and leather items.[1] Festivals in the town and municipality include the Festival of Flowers in March, the Feast of Saint Peter (patron saint of Tepotzotlan) in June, the Festival of the Señor del Nicho (Preciosa Sangre de Cristo) in September and the International Festival of Music in September.[8]

The city had a population of 39,374 as of 2005 and is 2300 meters above sea level.[9] Tepotzotlán has been named one of the Pueblos Mágicos of Mexico, mostly due to the town’s center, which not only has conserved its colonial look despite its proximity to Mexico City, but also because it is the home of the Church of San Francisco Javier and the Museo de Virreinato (Museum of the Viceroyalty),[10] since being named a Pueblo Magico, much effort has been put into rescuing and restoring much of the buildings of the town's past.[11]

The Museo del Virreinato, or Museum of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Colonial) Period, is housed in a complex that was built by the Society of Jesus or Jesuits in the 1580s. Here they established three schools, the first was dedicated to training Jesuit missionaries the indigenous languages of Mexico, the second was to provide education to Indian boys.[12] The third was the movement of the training of Jesuit priests from the College of San Pedro y San Pablo in Mexico City to a new facility called the College of San Francisco Javier, these schools would make Tepotzotlán one of the most prestigious educational centers in New Spain.[13]

Most of the complex is taken up by the Museo del Virreinato situated in what used to be the College of San Francisco Javier,[1] the Museo is considered to be one of the most impressive in the country due both to its collection and to the aesthetics of the building that houses it.[14] The complex contains a number of interior courtyards, such as the Aljibes and the Naranjo, as well as a domestic chapel, library, dormitories, refectory, and kitchen.[2] A wide arched passageway in the back of the complex leads to the extensive gardens area of more than 3 hectares, filled with gardens, sculptures and the original Salta de Agua fountain, which marked the end of the old Chapultepec aqueduct.[5]

Much of its collection is made of liturgical pieces from the old Museum of Religious Art which was part of the Mexico City Cathedral, the collection is one of the largest from the Mexican colonial era. There are exhibits of non-religious everyday items from the colonial period such as silverware and other objects of precious metals, textiles and tools,[14] the Church of San Francisco Javier is no longer used for religious services and is now part of the museum.[14] This church contains one of the most important collections of Churrigueresque altarpieces in Mexico.

The municipality, founded in 1814, is bordered by the municipalities of Huehuetoca, Coyotepec, Cuautitlán Izcalli, Nicolás Romero, Coyotepec, Teoloyucan and Villa del Carbón as well as the State of Hidalgo with a total area of 208.83 km². The municipality varies in altitude from 2,250 to 2,900 meters above sea level, the municipality has a mostly temperate climate with most rain falling in the summer and freezing temperatures common in the winter months. Predominant winds are from the northeast. 91% of the municipality is rural with about 9% developed. Much of the rural area is the Sierra de Tepotzotlán mountain range, which extends into neighboring Huehuetoca. There are two rivers here, the Hondo de Tepotzotlán and the Lanzarote, with a number of fresh-water springs and streams. There is one large dam called La Concepción along with a number of small ones, which are primarily used for the raising of fish.[3]

Most of the rural land consists of forest (47%) with agriculture and fish production next at about 20% each. Agriculture and fish farming account for over 40% of the economic activity of this municipality. Industry is a growing part of the economic base, with over ninety factories dedicated to the production of metals, processed meats, car parts, textiles and dyes; in third place is tourism which is mostly limited to the town center, the Arcos de Sitio and the ecological park. Much of the valley here is still dedicated to agriculture but this is being replaced by urbanization.[3] Much of this urbanization is in the way of industrial parks, such as the Parque Industrial El Convento I and the Parque Industrial FRISA San Jose, which is of recent construction. Both are located very close to the Mexico City-Querétaro highway.[6][7] Another impetus to urbanization is the building of housing developments to handle the influx of people moving here from Mexico City.[3]

The Aqueduct of Xalpa, better known s the Arcos del Sitio is a monumental aqueduct that carried water from the Oro River to Tepozotlán,[15] the aqueduct was built between the 18th and 19th centuries. It was begun by the Jesuits to bring water to their monastery and college but it was not finished because the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767,[5] it would not be finished until the 19th century by Manuel Romero de Terreros.[15] The site that gives the aqueduct the name “Arcos del Sitio” is the deepest gorges through which it passes. Here the aqueduct reaches 61 meters in height, with four levels of arches, the total length of the aqueduct is 41,900 meters. It is the highest aqueduct in Latin America, this gorge is at the site of the old La Concepcíon Hacienda, which was one of many owned by the Jesuits. In 1780, it was acquired by Pedro Romero de Terreros and was in the family until 1980; in 1993, restoration work was begun, ending in 1997. It was a farming hacienda that provided much of the foodstuffs for the Jesuits. Today, the hacienda is open to the public by appointment and can host guests as well as special events.[5] Also here is the Centro Ecoturístico y de Educación Ambiental, it is now home to the Centro Ecoturistico y de Educación Ambiental Arcos del Sitio. It contains 54 hectares and hosts sports such as hiking, mountain biking and camping,[15] the area is filled with reptiles, amphibians and birds.[5] Annually, about 750,000 visit this park.[15]

The Parque Ecológico Xochitla is located three km outside the city of Tepotzotlán, which used to be a hacienda known as La Resurrección, it is operated by the non-profit Xochitla Foundation.[1][15] It is about 70 hectares of parkland with about 7,000 species of trees and other plants, it also has workshops, playgrounds, expositions, a greenhouse and a lake with a wide variety of aquatic plants.[5] It also contains a very large and very old ginkgo biloba tree from China.[15]

The Sierra de Tepotzotlán state park comprises 13,175 hectares over the municipalities of Tepotzotlán and Huehuetoca,[15] it was declared a state park and ecological preservation zone in 1977. However, since then, much of the park was decommissioned to establish Military Base 37C, since then much of the sierra has been decommissioned as a park to create the Military Base 37C. The sierra contains forests of holm oak, strawberry trees and kermes oak, with areas of scrub and meadows; in the low-lying areas cactus and agave can be found. Along the river that runs through here are ash trees, trees of heaven, willows and others. Wildlife consists of small mammals such as coyotes and squirrels as well as a large number of birds and reptiles.[3] Sports that can be practiced here included hiking, camping, swimming, rock climbing and rappelling.[15]

1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

2.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan

3.
States of Mexico
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The United Mexican States is a federal republic composed of 31 states and Mexico City. According to the Constitution of 1917, the states of the federation are free, each state has its own congress and constitution. Mexico City is currently being reformed to have the rights of a state. The states of the Mexican Federation are free, sovereign, autonomous and they are free to govern themselves according to their own laws, each state has a constitution that cannot contradict the federal constitution, which covers issues of national competence. Since states have autonomy, each has its own civil and penal codes. In addition, the federation makes up a constituency in which 32 senators are elected by the method of proportional representation, Federal Deputies, however, do not represent the states, but rather the citizens themselves. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate together comprise the Congress of the Union, the states are internally divided into municipalities. Each municipality is autonomous in its ability to elect their own council, the council is headed by a mayor elected every 3 years with no possibility of immediate reelection. Each municipality has a composed of councilors in terms of population size. The council is responsible, in most cases, to all utilities required for its population. This concept, which arises from the Mexican Revolution, is known as a free municipality. In total there are 2438 municipalities in Mexico, the state with the highest number of municipalities is Oaxaca, with 570, Mexico City has a special status within the federation, being a federal district. Until January 2016, Mexico City was officially called Federal District and it is the seat of government of the Union and the capital of the United Mexican States. Mexico City was separated from the State of Mexico, of which it was the capital, on November 18,1824, as such, it did not belong to any state in particular but to all. Therefore, it was the president of Mexico, in representation of the federation, with full autonomy, Mexico City would have its own constitution – it previously had only an organic law called Statute of Autonomy – and its boroughs became municipalities. Until the ratification of Mexico Citys constitution, it is divided for administrative purposes into 16 delegacionesor boroughs. *Mexicos post agency, Correos de México, does not offer an official list, various competing commercially devised lists exist. The list here reflects choices among them according to these sources, on September 27,1821, after three centuries of Spanish rule, Mexico gained independence

4.
State of Mexico
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The State of Mexico is one of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is the most populous, as well as the most densely populated state and it is divided into 125 municipalities and its capital city is Toluca de Lerdo. The State of Mexico is often abbreviated to Edomex from Estado de México in Spanish and it is located in South-Central Mexico. The state’s origins are in the territory of the Aztec Empire, after Independence, Mexico City was chosen as the capital of the new nation, its territory was separated out of the state. Years later, parts of the state were broken off to form the states of Hidalgo, Guerrero and Morelos. The state name is simply México according to the 1917 Constitution of the United Mexican States, the demonym used to refer to people and things from the state is mexiquense, distinct from mexicano, that describes the people or things from the country as a whole. Mēxihco was originally the Nahuatl name for the Valley of Mexico where in the cities of the Mexica were located, as such, the district that became Mexico City was properly known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the years shortly before and after Spanish conquest. There are two origins for the name “Mexico. ”The first is that it derives from metztli. This comes from the old Aztec idea that the craters on the form a rabbit figure with one crater imitating a navel. The other possible origin is that it is derived from “Mextictli” an alternate name for the god Huitzilopochtli, Anáhuac was the proper term for all territories dominated by the Aztec Empire, from Cem Anáhuac, the entire earth or surrounded by waters e. g. The earliest evidence of habitation in current territory of the state is a quartz scraper and obsidian blade found in the Tlapacoya area. They are dated to the Pleistocene era which dates human habitation back to 20,000 years, stone age implements have been found all over the territory from mammoth bones, to stone tools to human remains. Most have been found in the areas of Los Reyes Acozac, Tizayuca, Tepexpan, San Francisco Mazapa, El Risco, between 20,000 and 5000 BCE, the people here eventually went from hunting and gathering to sedentary villages with farming and domesticated animals. The main crop was corn, and stone tools for the grinding of this grain become common, later crops include beans, chili peppers and squash grown near established villages. Evidence of ceramics appears around 2500 BCE with the earliest artifacts of these appearing in Tlapacoya, Atoto, Malinalco, Acatzingo, currently some scholars attribute an age of 11 thousand years, others 8 thousand, and some have suggested 5 thousand years old. This individual was identified as a male, but recent research confirms a female identity. Sacrum bone found in Tequixquiac is considered a work of prehistoric art, the town was inhabited in 35,000 BCE by primitive men who had crossed the Bering Strait from Asia. These people were nomadic, hunting large animals such as mammoths, the first native settlers of Tequixquiac were the Aztecs and Otomi, who decided to settle here permanently for the abundance of rivers and springs

5.
Time in Mexico
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Mexico uses four main time zones since February 2015, Zona Sureste covers the state of Quintana Roo. Zona Centro covers the eastern three-fourths of Mexico, including Mexico City, Guadalajara, Zona Pacífico covers the states of Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Sonora. Zona Noroeste covers the state of Baja California, including Tijuana, in addition, the law dictates that all island territories should fall within the time zone corresponding to their geographic location. Standard time was first defined in Mexico in 1921, when President Álvaro Obregón decreed two time zones, one time zone designated for 90° W covered the states of Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. A second time zone designated for 105° W covered the rest of the country, from Baja California to Veracruz and Oaxaca. It was decreed in 1942 that the Hora del Noroeste should cover only the states of Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, the time zone Hora del Sureste was created for tourist reasons in 1981, originally covering the states of Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo. The three states returned one year later to the Hora del Centro, Quintana Roo, however, returned to the Hora del Sureste from October 1997 to August 1998, first observation of DST was in 1931, but only for the state of Baja California. It used the Hora del Centro from April 1 to September 30, until 1996, Baja California was the only Mexican state to officially observe DST every year, coinciding with the observance of DST across the border in San Diego, California. These states abandoned DST the following year and did not return to it until DST was adopted nationwide, daylight saving time has been observed nationwide in Mexico beginning in 1996. But in the rest of the country, daylight saving time is observed between 2 a. m. on the first Sunday in April through 2 a. m. on the last Sunday in October, Quintana Roo and Sonora states do not observe DST. The first is the three or four weeks between the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in April, the second is the single week between the last Sunday in October and the first Sunday in November. During these periods, clocks in Mexico City match those in Denver rather than those in Chicago, the Mexican Stock Exchange changes its hours during these periods in order to maintain synchronization with the U. S. markets. In 1998 the state of Chihuahua moved from Central time to Mountain time and this is likely because Ciudad Juárez is directly across the border from El Paso, Texas, which is on Mountain Time. Later, in 2001, Mexico experimented with a daylight saving period from the first Sunday in May till the last Sunday in September. When the United States extended their DST period in 2007, the congress refused to do the same for Mexico. For the second time, congress refused to adopt it nationwide, congress refused to approve the change for the third time in a 10-year period, discarding the bill on June 29,2016. Daylight saving time is observed in all parts of the country except for the states of Quintana Roo, and Sonora and this is to coincide with the non-observation in Arizona, with which Sonora shares its northern border. The island territories do not currently observe daylight time either, during non-DST period, Mexico uses 4 different time zones

6.
Central Time Zone
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The North American Central Time Zone is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Central Standard Time is six hours behind Coordinated Universal Time, during summer most of the zone uses daylight saving time, and changes to Central Daylight Time which is five hours behind UTC. The province of Manitoba is the province or territory in Canada that observes Central Time in all areas. Also, most of the province of Saskatchewan is on Central Standard Time year-round, major exceptions include Lloydminster, a city situated on the boundary between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city charter stipulates that it shall observe Mountain Time and DST, putting the community on the time as all of Alberta, including the major cities of Calgary. As a result, during the summer, clocks in the province match those in Alberta. The Central Time Zone is the second most populous in the US after the Eastern Time Zone, lanett and Valley observe Eastern Time historically because they were textile mill towns and the original home office of their mills was in West Point, Georgia. Some eastern counties observe Central Time because they are close to the border of the Middle Tennessee counties surrounding the Nashville metropolitan area. Louisiana Michigan, All of Michigan observes Eastern Time except the four Upper Peninsula counties that border Wisconsin, other westernmost counties from this area such as Ontonagon observe Eastern Time. South Dakota, Eastern half as divided by the Missouri river adjacent to the state capital, note, the metropolitan area of Pierre is Central, including Fort Pierre. Wisconsin Most of Mexico—roughly the eastern three-fourths—lies in the Central Time Zone, except for six northwestern states, the federal entities of Mexico that observe Central Time, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua all use Central Standard Time year-round. The Galápagos Islands in Ecuador uses Central Standard Time all year-round, Daylight saving time is in effect in much of the Central time zone between mid-March and early November. The modified time is called Central Daylight Time and is UTC−5, in Canada, Saskatchewan does not observe a time change. One reason that Saskatchewan does not take part in a change is that, geographically. The province elected to move onto permanent daylight saving by being part of the Central Time Zone, Mexico decided not to go along with this change and observes their horario de verano from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. In December 2009, the Mexican Congress allowed ten border cities, eight of which are in states that observe Central Time, to adopt the U. S. daylight time schedule effective in 2010

7.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year

8.
UTC-5
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UTC−05,00 is a time offset that subtracts five hours from Coordinated Universal Time. In North America, it is observed in the Eastern Time Zone during standard time, the western Caribbean uses it year round. The southwestern and northwestern portions of Indiana Mexico – Central Zone Central, in most of Mexico, daylight time starts a few weeks after the United States. Communities on the U. S. border that observe Central Time follow the U. S. daylight time schedule

9.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties

10.
Mexico City
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Mexico City, or City of Mexico, is the capital and most populous city of Mexico. As an alpha global city, Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in the Americas and it is located in the Valley of Mexico, a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 metres. The city consists of sixteen municipalities, the 2009 estimated population for the city proper was approximately 8.84 million people, with a land area of 1,485 square kilometres. The Greater Mexico City has a domestic product of US$411 billion in 2011. The city was responsible for generating 15. 8% of Mexicos Gross Domestic Product, as a stand-alone country, in 2013, Mexico City would be the fifth-largest economy in Latin America—five times as large as Costa Ricas and about the same size as Perus. Mexico’s capital is both the oldest capital city in the Americas and one of two founded by Amerindians, the other being Quito. In 1524, the municipality of Mexico City was established, known as México Tenochtitlán, Mexico City served as the political, administrative and financial center of a major part of the Spanish colonial empire. After independence from Spain was achieved, the district was created in 1824. Ever since, the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution has controlled both of them, in recent years, the local government has passed a wave of liberal policies, such as abortion on request, a limited form of euthanasia, no-fault divorce, and same-sex marriage. On January 29,2016, it ceased to be called the Federal District and is now in transition to become the countrys 32nd federal entity, giving it a level of autonomy comparable to that of a state. Because of a clause in the Mexican Constitution, however, as the seat of the powers of the federation, it can never become a state, the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan was founded by the Mexica people in 1325. According to legend, the Mexicas principal god, Huitzilopochtli indicated the site where they were to build their home by presenting an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak. Between 1325 and 1521, Tenochtitlan grew in size and strength, eventually dominating the other city-states around Lake Texcoco, when the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec Empire had reached much of Mesoamerica, touching both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. After landing in Veracruz, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés advanced upon Tenochtitlan with the aid of many of the native peoples. Cortés put Moctezuma under house arrest, hoping to rule through him, the Aztecs thought the Spaniards were permanently gone, and they elected a new king, Cuitláhuac, but he soon died, the next king was Cuauhtémoc. Cortés began a siege of Tenochtitlan in May 1521, for three months, the city suffered from the lack of food and water as well as the spread of smallpox brought by the Europeans. Cortés and his allies landed their forces in the south of the island, the Spaniards practically razed Tenochtitlan during the final siege of the conquest. Cortés first settled in Coyoacán, but decided to rebuild the Aztec site to erase all traces of the old order and he did not establish a territory under his own personal rule, but remained loyal to the Spanish crown

11.
Aztec
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The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries. The Nahuatl words aztecatl and aztecah mean people from Aztlan, a place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time. Often the term Aztec refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan, situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mēxihcah Tenochcah or Cōlhuah Mexihcah. From the 13th century, the Valley of Mexico was the heart of Aztec civilization, here the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance, the Triple Alliance formed a tributary empire expanding its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of Mexico, conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica. At its pinnacle, Aztec culture had rich and complex mythological and religious traditions, as well as achieving remarkable architectural and artistic accomplishments. Subsequently, the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the ruined Aztec capital, the term extends to further ethnic groups associated with the Aztec empire such as the Acolhua and Tepanec and others that were incorporated into the empire. In older usage the term was used about modern Nahuatl speaking ethnic groups. In recent usage these ethnic groups are referred to as the Nahua peoples. Linguistically the term Aztecan is still used about the branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages that includes the Nahuatl language and its closest relatives Pochutec, to the Aztecs themselves the word aztec was not an endonym for any particular ethnic group. Rather it was a term used to refer to several ethnic groups, not all of them Nahuatl speaking. In the Nahuatl language aztecatl means person from Aztlan and this usage has been the subject of debate in more recent years, but the term Aztec is still more common. For the same reason the notion of Aztec civilization is best understood as a horizon of a general Mesoamerican civilization. Particular to the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan was the Mexica patron God Huitzilopochtli, twin pyramids, the Aztec Empire was a tribute empire based in Tenochtitlan that extended its power throughout Mesoamerica in the late postclassic period. Soon Texcoco and Tlacopan became junior partners in the alliance, which was de facto led by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, the empire extended its power by a combination of trade and military conquest. The political clout of the empire reached far south into Mesoamerica conquering cities as far south as Chiapas and Guatemala, the Nahua peoples began to migrate into Mesoamerica from northern Mexico in the 6th century. They populated central Mexico, dislocating speakers of Oto-Manguean languages as they spread their influence south. As the former nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples mixed with the civilizations of Mesoamerica, adopting religious and cultural practices. During the Postclassic period they rose to power at such sites as Tula, in the 12th century the Nahua power center was in Azcapotzalco, from where the Tepanecs dominated the valley of Mexico

12.
Aztec Empire
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The Aztec Empire, or the Triple Alliance, began as an alliance of three Nahua altepetl city-states, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. The Triple Alliance was formed from the faction in a civil war fought between the city of Azcapotzalco and its former tributary provinces. Despite the initial conception of the empire as an alliance of three self-governed city-states, Tenochtitlan quickly became dominant militarily. By the time the Spanish arrived in 1519, the lands of the Alliance were effectively ruled from Tenochtitlan, the alliance waged wars of conquest and expanded rapidly after its formation. Aztec rule has been described by scholars as hegemonic or indirect, the Aztecs left rulers of conquered cities in power so long as they agreed to pay semi-annual tribute to the Alliance, as well as supply military forces when needed for the Aztec war efforts. In return, the imperial authority offered protection and political stability, the state religion of the empire was polytheistic, worshiping a diverse pantheon that included dozens of deities. Many had officially recognized cults large enough so that the deity was represented in the temple precinct of the capital Tenochtitlan. The imperial cult, specifically, was that of Huitzilopochtli, the distinctive warlike patron god of the Mexica, peoples in conquered provinces were allowed to retain and freely continue their own religious traditions, so long as they added the imperial god Huitzilopochtli to their local pantheons. The word Aztec in modern usage would not have used by the people themselves. The name comes from a Nahuatl word meaning people from Aztlan, for the purpose of this article, Aztec refers only to those cities that constituted or were subject to the Triple Alliance. For the broader use of the term, see the article on Aztec civilization, Nahua peoples descended from Chichimec peoples who migrated to central Mexico from the north in the early 13th century. According to the pictographic codices in which the Aztecs recorded their history, Early migrants settled the Basin of Mexico and surrounding lands by establishing a series of independent city-states. These early Nahua cities were ruled by petty kings called tlahtohqueh, most of the existing settlements, which had been established by other indigenous peoples before the Nahua migration, were assimilated into Nahua culture. These early city-states fought various small-scale wars with other, but due to shifting alliances. The Mexica were the last of Aztlan migrants to arrive in Central Mexico and they entered the Basin of Mexico around the year 1250 AD, and by then most of the good agricultural land had already been claimed. The Mexica persuaded the king of Culhuacan to allow them to settle in a relatively infertile patch of land called Chapultepec, the Mexica served as hired mercenaries for Culhuacan. After they served Culhuacan in battle, the appointed one of his daughters to rule over the Mexica. According to mythological native accounts, the Mexica instead sacrificed her by flaying her skin, when the king of Culhuacan learned of this, he attacked and used his army to drive the Mexica from Tizaapan by force

13.
Society of Jesus
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The Society of Jesus Latin, Societas Iesu, S. J. SJ or SI) is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in Spain. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents, Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice, Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, ignatiuss plan of the orders organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the Formula of the Institute. Ignatius was a nobleman who had a background, and the members of the society were supposed to accept orders anywhere in the world. The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and, later, in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, the Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General. The Society of Jesus on October 3,2016 announced that Superior General Adolfo Nicolás resignation was officially accepted, on October 14, the 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus elected Father Arturo Sosa as its thirty-first Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome, the historic curia of St. Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit Pope, the Jesuits today form the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church. As of 1 January 2015, Jesuits numbered 16,740,11,986 clerics regular,2,733 scholastics,1,268 brothers and 753 novices. In 2012, Mark Raper S. J. wrote, Our numbers have been in decline for the last 40 years—from over 30,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 18,000 today. The steep declines in Europe and North America and consistent decline in Latin America have not been offset by the significant increase in South Asia, the Society is divided into 83 Provinces with six Independent Regions and ten Dependent Regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and their average age was 57.3 years,63.4 years for priests,29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Arturo Sosa, the Society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in countries around the world and is particularly active in the Philippines. In the United States it maintains 28 colleges and universities and 58 high schools and he ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, spirituality, community life and apostolate of the new religious order, the meeting is now commemorated in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre

14.
Nahuatl
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Nahuatl, known historically as Aztec, is a language or group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua peoples, all Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE and it was the language of the Aztecs who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl, today, Nahuan languages are spoken in scattered communities, mostly in rural areas throughout central Mexico and along the coastline. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are mutually unintelligible, Huasteca Nahuatl, with over one million speakers, is the most-spoken variety. They have all been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish, No modern Nahuan languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Nahuan languages exhibit a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination, through a very long period of coexistence with the other indigenous Mesoamerican languages, they have absorbed many influences, coming to form part of the Mesoamerican language area. Many words from Nahuatl have been borrowed into Spanish, and since diffused into hundreds of other languages, most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English words of Nahuatl origin include avocado, chayote, chili, chocolate, atlatl, coyote, peyote, axolotl, as a language label, the term Nahuatl encompasses a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects within the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas recognize 30 different individual varieties within the language group labeled Nahuatl, the Ethnologue recognizes 28 varieties with separate ISO codes. Sometimes the label also is used to include the Pipil language of El Salvador, within Mexico the question of whether to consider individual varieties to be languages or dialects of a single language is highly political. This article focuses on describing the history of the group. For details on individual varieties or subgroups, see the individual articles, in the past, the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs has been called Aztecan. From the 1990s onward, the alternative designation Nahuan has been used as a replacement especially in Spanish-language publications. The Nahuan branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions, General Aztec and Pochutec, General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages. Pochutec is a scantily attested language, which became extinct in the 20th century, other researchers have argued that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery. Nahuatl denotes at least Classical Nahuatl together with related languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil into the group is debated, current subclassification of Nahuatl rests on research by Canger, Canger and Lastra de Suárez

15.
Glyph
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In typography, a glyph /ˈɡlɪf/ is an elemental symbol within an agreed set of symbols, intended to represent a readable character for the purposes of writing. In Turkish, however, it is not a glyph because that language has two versions of the letter i, with and without a dot. In Japanese syllabaries, a number of the characters are made up of more than one separate mark, however, in some cases, additional marks fulfill the role of diacritics, to differentiate distinct characters. In general, a diacritic is a glyph, even if it is contiguous with the rest of the character, two or more glyphs which have the same significance, whether used interchangeably or chosen depending on context, are called allographs of each other. The term has been used in English since 1727, borrowed from glyphe, from the Greek γλυφή, glyphē, carving, and the verb γλύφειν, glýphein, to hollow out, engrave, carve. The word glyph first came to widespread European attention with the engravings, in archaeology, a glyph is a carved or inscribed symbol. It may be a pictogram or ideogram, or part of a system such as a syllable. In 1897 Dana Evans discovered glyphs written on rocks in the Colorado Desert and these ancient characters have been called the most enlightening discovery in Native American History in the 19th Century. In typography, a glyph has a different definition, it is the specific shape, design. The same is true in computing, in computing as well as typography, the term character refers to a grapheme or grapheme-like unit of text, as found in natural language writing systems. The range of glyphs required increases correspondingly, in summary, in typography and computing, a glyph is a graphical unit. In graphonomics, the glyph is used for a noncharacter. Most typographic glyphs originate from the characters of a typeface, in the mobile text input technologies, Glyph is a family of text input methods based on the decomposition of letters into basic shapes. In role-playing games, the glyph is sometimes used alongside the word rune in describing magical drawings or etchings. Runes often refer to placing the image on an object or person to empower it, whereas the magic in a glyph lies dormant and is only triggered when the glyph is read or approached

16.
Aztec codices
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Aztec codices are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture, the pre-Columbian codices mostly do not in fact use the codex form and are, or originally were, long folded sheets. They also differ from European books in that they mostly consist of images and pictograms, the colonial era codices not only contain Aztec pictograms, but also Classical Nahuatl, Spanish, and occasionally Latin. Some are entirely in Nahuatl without pictorial content, although there are very few surviving pre-conquest codices, the tlacuilo tradition endured the transition to colonial culture, scholars now have access to a body of around 500 colonial-era codices. Colonial-era Nahuatl language documentation is the texts of the New Philology. The Codex Borbonicus is a written by Aztec priests around the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Like all pre-Columbian Aztec codices, it was pictorial in nature. Codex Bornobicus is held at the Library of the National Assembly of France, the Boturini Codex was painted by an unknown Aztec author some time between 1530 and 1541, roughly a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Pictorial in nature, it tells the story of the legendary Aztec journey from Aztlán to the Valley of Mexico, rather than employing separate pages, the author used one long sheet of amatl, or fig bark, accordion-folded into 21½ pages. There is a rip in the middle of the 22nd page, unlike many other Aztec codices, the drawings are not colored, but rather merely outlined with black ink. Also known as Tira de la Peregrinación, it is named one of its first European owners. It is now held in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, the Codex Mendoza is a pictorial document, with Spanish annotations and commentary, composed circa 1541. It is divided into three sections, a history of each Aztec ruler and their conquests, a list of the tribute paid by each province. It is held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, the Florentine Codex is a set of 12 books created under the supervision of Bernardino de Sahagún between approximately 1540 and 1585. It is a copy of original materials which are now lost. Perhaps more than any source, the Florentine Codex has been the major source of Aztec life in the years before the Spanish conquest. Anderson published English translations of the Nahuatl text of the books in separate volumes. A full color, facsimile copy of the codex was published in three bound volumes in 1979

17.
Teocalli
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A teocalli is a Mesoamerican pyramid surmounted by a temple. The pyramid is terraced, and some of the most important religious rituals in Pre-Columbian Mexico took place in the temple at the top of the pyramid. The famous, although no longer extant, Aztec Huey Teocalli was located next to what is now Mexico Citys main square, the Zocalo. A famous 1848 painting by Emanuel Leutze depicts The Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops, one of the Cuban poet José María Heredias best-known poems is titled En el teocalli de Cholula. Also used in context by Chicano people involved in the Native American Church. Chicano chapters of the Native American Church refer to the organization as a teocalli, great Pyramid of Cholula Cholula Cholula, Puebla Churubusco This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Wood, James, ed. article name needed. London and New York, Frederick Warne

18.
Otomi people
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The Otomi people are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the central altiplano region of Mexico. Sierra Otomí usually self-identify as Ñuhu or Ñuhmu depending on the dialect they speak, smaller Otomi populations exist in the states of Puebla, Mexico, Tlaxcala, Michoacán and Guanajuato. The Otomi language belonging to the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean language family is spoken in different varieties some of which are not mutually intelligible. The Otomi traditionally worshipped the moon as their highest deity, and even into modern times many Otomi populations practice shamanism and hold prehispanic beliefs such as Nagualism. Otomies traditionally subsisted on maize, beans and squash as most Mesoamerican sedentary peoples, the name Otomi is an exonym and comes from the Nahuatl otomitl, which is possibly derived from an older word totomitl shooter of birds. However, the Otomi refer to themselves as Hñähñú, Hñähño, Hñotho, Hñähü, Hñätho, Yųhų, Yųhmų, Ñųhų, Ñǫthǫ or Ñañhų, most of the variant forms have two morphemes, meaning speak and well respectively. The word Otomi entered Spanish through Nahuatl and is used to describe the larger Otomi macroethnic group, from Spanish, the word Otomi has become entrenched in linguistic and anthropological literature. Otomi is one of the Oto-Pamean languages family, which also includes Chichimeca Jonaz, Mazahua, Pame, Ocuilteco, and Matlatzinca, Otomi, an Aztec military order named after, if not composed of, Otomis. Archived from the original on November 8,2005, pictures of Otomi weaving styles Cultura Otomí en Ixtenco, Tlaxcala, México. No Place Like Home Act One, Flight Simulation, about the Caminata Nocturna, in the Hñähñú village of El Alberto, Hidalgo

19.
Teotihuacan
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Additionally, Teotihuacan exported fine obsidian tools that garnered high prestige and widespread usage throughout Mesoamerica. The city is thought to have been established around 100 BC, the city may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries AD, but its major monuments were sacked and systematically burned around 550 AD. Teotihuacan began as a new center in the Mexican Highlands around the first century AD. This city came to be the largest and most populated center in the pre-Columbian Americas, Teotihuacan was even home to multi-floor apartment compounds built to accommodate this large population. The term Teotihuacan is also used for the civilization and cultural complex associated with the site. The later Aztecs saw these magnificent ruins and claimed a common ancestry with the Teotihuacanos, the ethnicity of the inhabitants of Teotihuacan is also a subject of debate. Possible candidates are the Nahua, Otomi, or Totonac ethnic groups, scholars have also suggested that Teotihuacan was a multi-ethnic state. The city and the site are located in what is now the San Juan Teotihuacán municipality in the State of México. The site covers a surface area of 83 square kilometres and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. It is the most visited site in Mexico. The name Teōtīhuacān was given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs centuries after the fall of the city around 550 A. D, the term has been glossed as birthplace of the gods, or place where gods were born, reflecting Nahua creation myths that were said to occur in Teotihuacan. Nahuatl scholar Thelma D. Sullivan interprets the name as place of those who have the road of the gods and this is because the Aztecs believed that the gods created the universe at that site. The name is pronounced in Nahuatl, with the accent on the syllable wa, by normal Nahuatl orthographic conventions, a written accent would not appear in that position. Both this pronunciation and Spanish pronunciation, are used, and both appear in this article. The original name of the city is unknown, but it appears in texts from the Maya region as puh. This naming convention led to confusion in the early 20th century. It now seems clear that Tollan may be understood as a generic Nahua term applied to any large settlement, the early history of Teotihuacan is quite mysterious, and the origin of its founders is uncertain. Around 300 BC, people of the central and southeastern area of Mesoamerica began to gather into larger settlements, Teotihuacan was the largest urban center of Mesoamerica before the Aztecs, almost 1000 years prior to their epoch

20.
Nahua peoples
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The Nahuas are a group of indigenous people of Mexico and El Salvador. Their language of Uto-Aztecan affiliation is called Nahuatl and consists of many dialects and variants. About 1,500,000 Nahua speak Nahuatl and another 1,000,000 speak only Spanish, less than 1,000 native speakers remain in El Salvador. Evidence suggests the Nahua peoples originated in Aridoamerica, in regions of the present day northwestern Mexico and they split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. They settled in and around the Basin of Mexico and spread out to become the dominant people in central Mexico, the name Nahua is derived from the Nahuatl word-root nāhua-, which generally means audible, intelligible, clear with different derivations including language. It was used in contrast with popoloca, to speak unintelligibly or speak a foreign language, another, related term is Nāhuatlācatl or Nāhuatlācah literally Nahuatl-speaking people. The Nahuas are also referred to as Aztecs. Using this term for the Nahuas has generally fallen out of favor in scholarship and they have also been called Mēxihcatl, Mēxihcah or in Spanish Mexicano Mexicans, after the Mexica, the Nahua tribe which founded and predominated in the Aztec empire. At the turn of the 16th century, Nahua populations occupied territories ranging across modern-day Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and these were gradually assimilated into mestizo society in most places. The last of the southern Nahua populations are the Pipil of El Salvador, Nahuatl was a lingua franca for trade and rule during the apogee of the Aztec empire. There are many Nahuatl place names in regions where Nahuas were not the most populous group, Nahua populations in Mexico are centered in the middle of the country, with most speakers in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero and San Luis Potosí. But smaller populations are spread throughout the country, following recent population movements within Mexico, within the last 50 years, Nahua populations have appeared in the United States, particularly in New York City, L. A. and Houston. Archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence suggest that the Nahuas originally came from the deserts of northern Mexico, before the Nahuas entered Mesoamerica, they were probably living for a while in northwestern Mexico alongside the Cora and Huichol peoples. The first group of Nahuas to split from the group were the Pochutec who went on to settle on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca possibly as early as 400 CE. From c.600 CE the Nahua quickly rose to power in central Mexico and expanded into areas earlier occupied by Oto-Manguean, Totonacan and Huastec peoples. Around 1000 CE the Toltec people, normally assumed to have been of Nahua ethnicity, from this period on the Nahua were the dominant ethnic group in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, and migrations kept coming in from the north. After the fall of Toltecs a period of population movements followed. And in central Mexico different Nahua groups based in their different Altepetl city-states fought for political dominance

21.
Chichimeca
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Chichimeca was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to many bands and tribes of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited northern modern-day Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same sense as the Roman term barbarian to describe people living outside settled, the name and its pejorative sense was adopted by the Spanish. For the Spanish, in the words of scholar Charlotte M. Gradie, in modern times only one ethnic group is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz of whom a few thousand live in the state of Guanajuato. The Chichimeca peoples were groups of varying ethnicities and speaking distinct languages from different families. As the Spaniards worked towards consolidating the rule of New Spain over the indigenous peoples during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a number of ethnic groups of the region allied against the Spanish. The first and most long-lasting of these conflicts was the Chichimeca War, for example, virtually nothing is known about the peoples referred to as the Guachichil, Caxcan, Zacateco, Tecuexe, or Guamare. Others, such as the Opata or Eudeve, are described in records. Still other Chichimec peoples maintain separate identities into the present day, for example the Otomi, Chichimeca Jonaz, Cora, Huichol, Pame, Yaqui, Mayo, Oodham, the Nahuatl name Chīchīmēcah means inhabitants of Chichiman, the placename Chichiman means Area of Milk. It is sometimes said to be related to dog, but the is in chichi are short while those in Chīchīmēcah are long. In modern Mexico, the word Chichimeca can have pejorative connotations, such as primitive, savage, uneducated, the first descriptions of Chichimecs are from the early conquest period. In 1526, Hernán Cortés writes in one of his letters of the northern Chichimec tribes and he commented that they might be enslaved and used to work in the mines. The Chicimec, Caxcanes and other people of Northern Mexico fought back against Spanish forces such as Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán when they began trying to enslave them. Their fight against Spanish forces became known as the Mixtón Rebellion, in the late sixteenth century, Gonzalo de las Casas wrote about the Chichimec. Las Casas account was called Report of the Chichimeca and the justness of the war against them and he described the people, providing ethnographic information. He wrote that only covered their genitalia with any clothing, painted their bodies. He mentions as further proof of their barbarity that Chichimec women, having given birth, while las Casas recognized that the Chichimecan tribes spoke different languages, he considered their culture as primarily uniform. This stereotype became even more prevalent during the course of the Chichimec wars, in some areas, the Chichimeca cultivated maize and calabash. From the mesquite, the Chichamecs made white bread and wine, many Chichimec tribes used the juice of the agave as a substitute for water when it was in short supply

22.
Chapa de Mota
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Chapa de Mota is a village and municipality located in the northwest of Mexico State. It is located in the part of the State of Mexico. It is 2 hours away by car from Mexico City, the Chapa de Mota area was first inhabited in the early 16th century by different ethnic groups, however, the Otomis had the control over the whole zone and established the original village. The Mexica eventually conquered the area, in Chapa de Mota, today, there are many retail businesses like clothing stores, footwear stores, butchers, groceries and pharmacies. Finally there is an industry called Camil SA, De CV, that manufactures plastic hooks. Chapa de Mota has forests with a lot of vegetation and animals, Chapa De Mota is rich in natural resources, the principal landmark is mountains and rainforest. There are many kinds of vegetation and animals, in the forests of Chapa de Mota, there are pines, oyamel firs, ocote pines, oaks, cedars, eucalyptus, and other kinds of trees. In Chapa de Mota the principal activities are irrigation and agriculture, especially corn, oats, beans and broad beans as well as the breeding of cattle, pigs, poultry. Tourism is another economic activity there are a lot of mountainous zones to camp in. There is also an area called Mexico Chiquito where competitions of model planes takes place. Also in Chapa de Mota exist a lot of businesses of clothing stores. Finally there is an industry called Camil SA

23.
Huehuetoca
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Huehuetoca is a municipio in State of Mexico, central Mexico, and also the name of its largest town and municipal seat. The name Huehuetoca is derived from the Nahuatl huehuetocan, which has several interpretations, the reduplicated stem huēhue- carries the meaning old or ancient, but the etymology of the remainder is debated. Some sources interpret tocan as “followed” or “language. ”The town originated with the migration of a Chichimeca group led by Mixcóatl into the area around 528 CE, the settlement was conquered by a number of people. The original Huehuetocan village was destroyed by the Otomi from Xaltocan and these Otomi were then vanquished by the Huexotzincas, the Tlaxcaltecas, the Totomihuacas from Cholollan and the Cuauhtinchantlaca from Tepeyac. With each wave of conquest, the became part of a larger political system. The last native people to control the village were the Tecpanecas, the area was evangelized by the Franciscans based in Cuautitlán, and it is thought that the first church was founded by Friar Pedro de Gante. By the mid-1500s, Huehuetoca and thirteen nearby villages were managed by a secular authority. At the beginning of the 16th century, Huehuetoca was chosen as the site of one of the first drainage projects for the Valley of Mexico. Beginning in 1607, engineer Enrico Martínez, persuaded the Spanish vice-regal authorities of the need to build a canal to drain, the project initially attracted the attention of notable engineers, artists and political figures including the viceroy, Luis de Velasco II, himself. The complete project took around 200 years to complete, in 1816, during the Mexican War of Independence, resident Pedro Saldirna was accused of heading a rebel group by the local priest. Haciendas near the town were sacked during the Mexican Revolution by Zapatistas, the Cuautitlán River crosses just north of the town and flows into the canal built for drainage of the Valley of Mexico. This river/canal is also called the Nochistongo, named after an old village that was located in what is now the State of Hidalgo. The town was also a stop on the Mexico City - Nuevo Laredo rail line that was inaugurated in 1888 by the National Mexican Construction Company and this rail line was widened here between 1901 and 1903 to also serve as a link north for Toluca and other central-Mexico localities. This house served as a residence for the viceroys when they came to visit, the municipality borders the municipalities of Tepotzotlán, Zumpango, Tequixquiac and Coyotepec of the State of Mexico. The State of Hidalgo borders to the northwest and it occupies a territory of 161. 98km2. The territory contains a number of eroding volcanic cones, most of which belong to the Sierra de Guadalupe, the area’s main river is the Cuautitlán River. Because of the project of the 17th century, this river now leads to the Tula River in Hidalgo. The municipality contains two dams to store wáter for agricultural use,16 streams, most of which contain wáter only in the rainy season

24.
Valley of Mexico
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The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several civilizations, including Teotihuacan, the Toltec. The ancient Aztec term Anahuac and the phrase Basin of Mexico are both used at times to refer to the Valley of Mexico, the Basin of Mexico became a well known site that epitomized the scene of early Classic Mesoamerican cultural development as well. The Valley of Mexico is located in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, the valley contains most of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, as well as parts of the State of Mexico, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala and Puebla. The Valley of Mexico can be subdivided into four basins, but the largest and this section of the valley in particular is colloquially referred to as the Valley of Mexico. The valley has an altitude of 2,200 meters above sea level and is surrounded by mountains. It is a valley with no natural outlet for water to flow. Within this vulnerable watershed all the fishes were extinct by the end of the 20th century. Hydrologically, the valley has three features, the first feature is the lakebeds of five now-extinct lakes, which are located in the southernmost and largest of the four sub-basins. The other two features are piedmont, and the mountainsides that collect the precipitation that eventually flows to the lake area and these last two are found in all four of the sub-basins of the valley. Today, the Valley drains through a series of canals to the Tula River, and eventually the Pánuco River. Seismic activity is frequent here, and the valley is considered an earthquake prone zone, the valley has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years, attracting humans with its mild climate, abundant game and ability to support large-scale agriculture. Civilizations that have arisen in this include the Teotihuacan the Toltec Empire. When the Spaniards arrived in the Valley of Mexico, it had one of the highest population concentrations in the world with one million people. After the Conquest, the Spaniards rebuilt the largest and most dominant city here, Tenochtitlan, although violence and disease significantly lowered the population of the valley after the Conquest, by 1900 it was again over one million people. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen an explosion of population in the valley along with the growth of industry, since 1900, the population has doubled every fifteen years. Today, around 21 million people live in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area which extends throughout almost all of the valley into the states of Mexico, the growth of a major urban, industrial centre in an enclosed basin has created significant air and water quality issues for the valley. Wind patterns and thermal inversions trap contaminants in the valley, over-extraction of ground water has caused new flooding problems for the city as it sinks below the historic lake floor

25.
Xaltocan
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Xaltocan was a pre-Columbian city-state and island in the Valley of Mexico, located in the center of Lake Xaltocan, part of an interconnected shallow lake system which included Lake Texcoco. The island of Xaltocan was then resettled by Nahuatl speakers, the name can mean either of two things in the Nahuatl language, either sandy ground of spiders or where sand sowing. Xaltocan is known to have been inhabited in the Postclassic period, ceramics and other archaeological remains dating to this period have been recovered in excavations at the site. It is thought to have been a center of power capable of exacting tribute from other city-states in the area. The founding of Xaltocan is described in the documents, the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca. According to the Anales the Xaltocameca were among the Chichimec tribes that left the place of origin, Aztlán. The Historia also identifies the Xaltocameca as belong to the Otomi ethnic group, in this document, written by Ixtlilxochitl, the first leader of the Xaltocameca is named as Iztacquauhtli, which also means White Eagle in Nahuatl. In the 13th century Xaltocan were involved in a war with the Nahua city-state of Cuauhtitlan. During the next 100 years the site was resettled by Nahua peoples, after the Aztec Triple Alliance defeated the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco, Xaltocan became an Aztec subject city and paid tribute to Tenochtitlan, mainly in the form of woven blankets. In 1521 during the Spanish conquest of Mexico the army of Hernán Cortés razed Xaltocan, hodge,1996, Interaction in the basin of Mexico, The case of Postclassic Xaltocan- Arqueología mesoamericana, homenaje a William T. Sanders Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. Ed. 2005, Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan Arqueología de México,6, published by University of Pittsburgh Latin American Archaeology Publications and Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia 389 pp. ISBN 1-877812-81-1. Hodge, Mary G. and Hector Neff 2005 Xaltocan in the Economy of the Basin of Mexico, in Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan. Mexico City, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, what If the Aztec Empire Never Existed. The Prerequisites of Empire and the Politics of Plausible Alternative Histories, morehart, Christopher T. and Dan T. A. Eisenberg 2010 Prosperity, Power, and Change, Modeling Maize at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico. Romero Navarrete Omar 2007 La gloria de Xaltocan, los guerreros del sol

26.
Texcoco (altepetl)
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Texcoco was a major Acolhua city-state in the central Mexican plateau region of Mesoamerica during the Late Postclassic period of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology. It was situated on the bank of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico, to the northeast of the Aztec capital. The site of pre-Columbian Texcoco is now subsumed by the modern Mexican municipio of Texcoco and its major settlement and it also lies within the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City. Pre-Columbian Texcoco is most noted for its membership in the Aztec Triple Alliance, at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, it was one of the largest and most prestigious cities in central Mexico, second only to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. A survey of Mesoamerican cities estimated that pre-conquest Texcoco had a population of 24,000, the people of Tetzcohco were called Tetzcocatl or Tetzcocah. Texcoco was founded in the 12th century, on the shore of Lake Texcoco. In or about 1337, the Acolhua, with Tepanec help, expelled Chichimecs from Texcoco and Texcoco became the Acolhua capital city, in 1418, Ixtlilxochitl I, the tlatoani of Texcoco, was dethroned by Tezozomoc of Azcapotzalco. Ten years later, in 1428, Ixtlilxochitls son, Nezahualcoyotl allied with the Mexica to defeat Tezozomocs son and successor, Texcoco and the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, with the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, subsequently formalized their association as the Triple Alliance. However this was an alliance as Tlacopan entered the battle against Azcapotzalco late. Texcoco thereby became the second-most important city in the eventual Aztec empire, Texcoco was known as a center of learning within the empire, and had a famed library including books from older Mesoamerican civilizations. Erected by the hill of Texcotzingo, the residence had aqueducts, baths, gardens, stairways. The palace gardens were a vast botanical collection that included plants from not only the growing Aztec Empire, the water used to irrigate the gardens was obtained from the springs beyond the mountains to the east of Texcoco. The water was channeled through canals carved into the rock, in certain areas, rock staircases were used as waterfalls. After clearing the mountains, the canals continued downhill to a point a distance from Texcotzingo. There the path to the city was blocked a deep canyon that ran north to south. Nezahualcoyotl ordered that the gap be filled with tons of rocks and stones, the whole hill of Texcotzingo was also served by this canal system and converted by his designers into a sacred place for the rain god Tláloc, complete with waterfalls, exotic animals and birds. Xolotl was said to be the founder of Texcoco in 1115 AD and he was followed by Nopaltzin, Tlotzin, Quinatzin, Techotlalazin, Ixlilxochitl, Nezahualcoyotl, Nezahualpilli, Cacama, Coanchochtzin, and Don Fernando Ixtlilxochitl. Nezahualcoyotl was a poet, philosopher, and patron of the arts

27.
Moctezuma I
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Moctezuma I, also known as Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, Huehuemotecuhzoma or Montezuma I, was the second Aztec emperor and fifth king of Tenochtitlan. During his reign, the Aztec Empire was consolidated, major expansion was undertaken, Moctezuma was the son of emperor Huitzilihuitl and queen Miahuaxihuitl. He was a brother of Chimalpopoca, Tlacaelel I, and Huehue Zaca, and the father of Atotoztli II and their sons would be the next three tlatoque of Tenochtitlan. Moctezuma took power in 1440, after the death of his half-uncle Itzcoatl, as tlatoani, Moctezuma solidified the alliance with two neighboring states, Tlacopan and Texcoco. In this skillfully crafted Triple Alliance, 4/5ths of a conquered territory would be divided between Texcoco and the Aztecs, with the remaining 1/5 given to Tlacopan. In about 1458, Moctezuma led an expedition into Mixtec territory against the city-state of Coixtlahuaca, despite the support of contingents of Tlaxcala and Huexotzinco warriors, traditional enemies of the Aztecs, the Mixtecs were defeated. While most of the chieftains were allowed to retain their positions. He took many girls from Coixtlahuaca and had ten harems all to himself and he stole three of them from his dead brother Zaca. Similar campaigns were conducted against Cosamaloapan, Ahuilizapan, and Cuetlachtlan, list of Tenochtitlan rulers Moctezuma II Montezuma I

28.
Azcapotzalco (altepetl)
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Azcapotzalco was a pre-Columbian Nahua altepetl, capital of the Tepanec empire, in the Valley of Mexico, on the western shore of Lake Texcoco. The name Azcapotzalco means at the anthill in Nahuatl, according to the 17th century annalist Chimalpahin, Azcapotzalco was founded by Chichimecs in the year 995 AD. The most famous ruler of Azcapotzalco was Tezozomoctli, according to chronicler Fernando Alva Ixtlilxóchitl the Tepanecs were a Chichimec group and settled in 1012 in the region west of Lake Texcoco. Its lineage begins when their Acolhua leader marries Xolotls daughter Cuetlaxochitzin, but this information is rather in a mythical context, Acolnahuacatls life is registered much later. Chimalpahin places their settlement before, in 995, continuing with data provided by Chimalpahin, he mentions that Tepanec entered the Triple Alliance from 1047. The documents indicate that last line starts with Matlacohuatl, Azcapotzalco was founded in the 13th century in the west of Lake Texcoco. Azcapotzalco maintained a dominant hegemony with the Aztecs, who arrived in 1299, settling on the Chapultepec Hill, in 1318 for the first time they attacked the Aztecs, which resulted in an increased tribute and greater participation in military campaigns. Around of 1315, the Tepanec, Toltec and Chichimec drove the Aztecs definitively from Chapultepec, Cópil was captured and killed by the Aztecs. His heart was ripped out and thrown into the River, according to a legend, Huitzilopochtli had to kill his nephew, Cópil and threw his heart in the Lake. However, since Cópil was his relative, Huitzilopochtli decided to honor him and made a cactus grow over Cópil heart, the Aztecs attempted to ally with the Colhua to confront the Tepanec, they were allowed to settle in Tizapán, near Colhuacan. In 1323, the Aztecs slaughtered a Colhua Princess in front of her father, the Colhua had been expelled from Tizapán and immediately declared war. The Aztecs called for immediate Azcapotzalco protection, and from this point forward they were subject to military, at Acolnahuacatls death, his son Tezozomoc, only 23 years old, took his place, Tezozomoc may be the most important and crucial post-classical period figure. During his reign, Azcapotzalco reached its greatest splendor, at the time of his death in 1426, Azcapotzalco was an authentic Hueyi Tlahtohcayotl, it controlled trade routes at least 40 altépetl. His political decisions both destroyed villages and favored the emergence of others and he installed his sons on the thrones of many nearby altépetl, such as his son Cuacuapitzahuac who ruled Tlatelolco until 1407. The later supremacy of Tenochtitlan was a result of Tezozómocs policies, Tezozómoc forced the Aztecs to fight with him and together conquered the city of Colhuacan in 1385. Between 1414-1418, Azcapotzalco controlled the entire Valley of Mexico, thanks to the contribution of Aztec and mercenary forces. Azcapotzalco became a center of enormous power. In 1426, When Tezozómoc died, his son Maxtla took power, maxta failed to maintain alliances and lost the crucial support of the Aztecs by arranging for the assassination of their tlatoani Chimalpopoca

29.
Tenochtitlan
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Mexico-Tenochtitlan, commonly known as Tenochtitlan was a Mexica located on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. Founded on June 20,1325, it became the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century, at its peak it was the largest city in the Pre-Columbian Americas. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, today the ruins of Tenochtitlan are located in Mexico Citys downtown. Tenochtitlan was one of two Nahua āltēpetl on the island, the other being Tlatelolco, traditionally, the name Tenochtitlan was thought to come from Nahuatl tetl and nōchtli and is often thought to mean, Among the prickly pears rocks. However, one attestation in the late 16th-century manuscript known as the Bancroft dialogues suggest the second vowel was short, Tenochtitlan covered an estimated 8 to 13.5 km2, situated on the western side of the shallow Lake Texcoco. At the time of Spanish conquests, Mexico City comprised both Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, the city was connected to the mainland by causeways leading to the north, south, and west. The causeways were interrupted by bridges that allowed canoes and other traffic to pass freely. The bridges could be pulled away, if necessary, to defend the city, the city was interlaced with a series of canals, so that all sections of the city could be visited either on foot or via canoe. Lake Texcoco was the largest of five interconnected lakes, since it formed in an endorheic basin, Lake Texcoco was brackish. During the reign of Moctezuma I, the levee of Nezahualcoyotl was constructed, estimated to be 12 to 16 km in length, the levee was completed circa 1453. The levee kept fresh spring-fed water in the waters around Tenochtitlan and kept the brackish waters beyond the dike, two double aqueducts, each more than 4 km long and made of terracotta, provided the city with fresh water from the springs at Chapultepec. This was intended mainly for cleaning and washing, for drinking, water from mountain springs was preferred. Most of the population liked to bathe twice a day, Moctezuma was said to take four baths a day. According to the context of Aztec culture in literature, the soap that they most likely used was the root of a plant called copalxocotl, and to clean their clothes they used the root of metl. Also, the classes and pregnant women washed themselves in a temazcalli, similar to a sauna bath. This was also popular in other Mesoamerican cultures, and some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream. I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never heard of or seen before. The city was divided into four zones, or campan, each campan was divided into 20 districts, there were three main streets that crossed the city, each leading to one of the three causeways to the mainland of Tepeyac, Ixtapalpa, and Tlacopan

30.
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
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Toribio of Benavente, O. F. M. also known as Motolinía, was a Franciscan missionary, one of the famous Twelve Apostles of Mexico who arrived in New Spain in May 1524. His published writings are a key source for the history and ethnography of the Nahuas of central Mexico in the immediate post-conquest period as well as the challenges of Christian evangelization. He is probably best known for his attacks on the defender of the rights of the peoples, Bartolomé de las Casas. Motolinia supported the subjugation of the Indians as savages and did all he could to vilify the Dominican campaign to protect their natural rights and full humanity. Toribio entered the Franciscan Order as a boy, dropping his family name of Paredes in favor of his birth city. In 1523 he was chosen to be among the first twelve missionaries to be sent to the New World, after a strenuous journey he arrived in Mexico where Fray Toribio was greeted with great respect by Hernán Cortés. Upon walking through Tlaxcala the Indians commented on his ragged Franciscan robes, saying Motolinia and this was the first word he learned in the Nahuatl language and he took it as his name. For the Franciscan Order, poverty was an important and defining virtue and he was named Guardian of the Convent of San Francisco in Mexico City where he resided from 1524 to 1527. From 1527 to 1529 Fray Toribio worked in Guatemala and perhaps Nicaragua, back in Mexico he stayed at the convent of Huejotzinco near Tlaxcala, where he had to help the natives against the abuse and atrocities committed by Nuño de Guzmán. With Franciscan colleagues he traveled to Tehuantepec in Guatemala and to the Yucatán to undertake missionary work. In fact, in a letter to King Charles V of Spain, he undertook a virulent attack on Las Casas. He called him a man, restless, importunate, turbulent, injurious. He furthermore advised the king to have Las Casas shut up for keeping in a monastery. In 1545 the encomenderos of Chiapas asked for him to come there to them against Las Casas but he declined. The letter to the king is an important document, clarifying the Franciscan position of baptizing as many Indians as possible if they presented themselves for it. Given that in the years of post-conquest Mexico devastating plagues reduced the indigenous population considerably. They took the position that they should baptize first to ensure salvation, the Dominican Order was famous for its adherence to firm doctrinal positions, which is Mexico meant that they refused baptism to Indians they deemed ill prepared in the tenets of Christianity. In his letter to the king, Motolinia recounts an incident of Las Casass refusal to baptize an Indian in Tlaxcala, and since you wont baptize or instruct and Indian, it would be well if you would pay those that you so load down and tire out

31.
Franciscans
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The Franciscans are a group of related mendicant religious orders within the Catholic Church, founded in 1209 by Francis of Assisi. These orders include the Order of Friars Minor, the Order of Saint Clare, Francis began preaching around 1207 and traveled to Rome to seek approval from the Pope in 1209. The original Rule of Saint Francis approved by the Pope disallowed ownership of property, the austerity was meant to emulate the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Franciscans traveled and preached in the streets, while boarding in church properties, Saint Clare, under Franciss guidance, founded the Poor Clares in 1212, which remains a Second Order of the Franciscans. The extreme poverty required of members was relaxed in final revision of the Rule in 1223, the degree of observance required of members remained a major source of conflict within the order, resulting in numerous secessions. The Order of Friars Minor, previously known as the Observant branch, is one of the three Franciscan First Orders within the Catholic Church, the others being the Capuchins and Conventuals. The Order of Friars Minor, in its current form, is the result of an amalgamation of smaller orders completed in 1897 by Pope Leo XIII. The latter two, the Capuchin and Conventual, remain distinct religious institutes within the Catholic Church, observing the Rule of Saint Francis with different emphases, Franciscans are sometimes referred to as minorites or greyfriars because of their habit. In Poland and Lithuania they are known as Bernardines, after Bernardino of Siena, the name of original order, Friars Minor, means lesser brothers, and stems from Francis of Assisis rejection of extravagance. Francis was the son of a cloth merchant, but gave up his wealth to pursue his faith more fully. Francis adopted of the tunic worn by peasants as the religious habit for his order. Those who joined him became the original Order of Friars Minor and they all live according to a body of regulations known as the Rule of St Francis. First Order The First Order or the Order of Friars Minor are commonly called simply the Franciscans and this Order is a mendicant religious order of men, some of whom trace their origin to Francis of Assisi. Their official Latin name is the Ordo Fratrum Minorum, St. Francis thus referred to his followers as Fraticelli, meaning Little Brothers. Franciscan brothers are informally called friars or the Minorites and they all live according to a body of regulations known as the Rule of St Francis. These are The Order of Friars Minor, known as the Observants, most commonly simply called Franciscan friars, official name, the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin or simply Capuchins, official name, Friars Minor Capuchin. The Conventual Franciscans or Minorites, official name, Friars Minor Conventual, Second Order The Second Order, most commonly called Poor Clares in English-speaking countries, consists of religious sisters. The order is called the Order of St. Clare, but in the century, prior to 1263, this order was referred to as The Poor Ladies, The Poor Enclosed Nuns

32.
Encomienda
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The encomienda was a labor system, rewarding conquerors with the labor of particular groups of people. It was first established in Spain during the Roman period, and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines. Conquered peoples were considered vassals of the Spanish monarch and the award of an encomienda was a grant from the crown to a particular individual. In the encomienda, the Spanish crown granted a person a specified number of natives from a community, with the indigenous leaders in charge of mobilizing the assessed tribute. In return, the natives would provide tributes in the form of metals, maize, wheat, in the first decade of Spanish presence in the Caribbean, Spaniards divided up the natives, who in some cases were worked relentlessly. With the ouster of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish crown sent a governor, Fray Nicolás de Ovando. In many cases natives were forced to do hard labor and subjected to extreme punishment, however, Queen Isabella of Castile had forbidden Indian slavery and deemed the indigenous free vassals of the crown, allowing many natives and Spaniards to appeal to the Real Audiencias. In the former Inca Empire, for example, the system continued the Incaic traditions of extracting tribute in the form of labor, the heart of encomienda and encomendero lies in the Spanish verb encomendar, to entrust. The encomienda was based on the Reconquista institution in which adelantados were given the right to extract tribute from Muslims or other peasants in areas that they had conquered and resettled. The encomienda system in Spanish America differed from the Peninsular institution in that encomenderos did not own the land on which the natives lived, the system did not entail any direct land tenure by the encomendero, Indian lands were to remain in the possession of their communities. This right was protected by the crown of Castile because the rights of administration in the New World belonged to this crown. The first grantees of the encomienda or encomenderos were usually conquerors who received grants of labor by virtue of participation in a successful conquest. Later, some receiving encomiendas in New Spain were not conquerors themselves but were well connected that they received grants. He designated as pobladores antiguos, a group of undetermined number of encomenderos in New Spain, holders of encomiendas also included women and indigenous notables. The daughter of Doña Marina and conqueror Juan Jaramillo, Doña Maria Jaramillo, two of Moctezumas daughters, Doña Isabel Moctezuma and her younger sister, Doña Leonor Moctezuma, were granted extensive encomiendas in perpetuity by Hernan Cortes. Doña Leonor Moctezuma married in succession two Spaniards, and left the encomiendas to her daughter by her second husband, vassal Inca rulers established after the conquest also sought and were granted encomiendas. Indeed, the settler-conquistadors knew the fury of the aroused Indian lords, voyagers, explorers, initially, the encomienda system was devised to meet the needs of the early agricultural economies in the Caribbean. Later it was adopted to the economy of Peru and Upper Peru

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San Pedro y San Pablo College, Mexico City
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The San Pedro y San Pablo College colonial church and school complex built in late 16th and early 17th centuries, located in the historical center of Mexico City district of Mexico City, Mexico. Today the church section of the houses the Museum of the Constitutions of Mexico−Museo de las Constituciones. The former school section of the complex stretches along San Ildefonso Street to Republica de Venezuela Street, San Pedro y San Pablo College was the second college founded by Jesuits in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Jesuit missionaries were sent to the new colony in the 16th century for Jesuit Reductions version of Indian Reductions, and to found new missions and schools. The missionary group founded the college was led by Father Pedro Sanchez. It was called Máximo because it was built to oversee the training of priests in Mexico City, Tepotzotlan, Puebla, Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Guatemala, construction of the facility began in 1576, funded by Don Alonso de Villaseca and others. The colleges church, on the corner of El Carmen and San Ildefonso, was built by Jesuit architect Diego Lopez de Arbaizo between 1576 and 1603. The church annex was completed in 1603 by Diego Lopez de Albaize, the purpose of the college was to provide university-level education to young Criollo men, at least partially descended from white European colonial settlers. It was divided into the Lesser Schools, which taught humanities and Greek/Latin grammar, and the Superior Schools, which focused on theology, the institution educated young men for both religious and secular vocations. Two of its notable alumni are Francisco Javier Alegre and Francisco Javier Clavijero. After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 from colonial Mexico, the school building was given to civil authorities, who first used it as a barracks, and later to house the Nacional Monte de Piedad credit union charity foundation. The church was transferred to Augustinians, who removed most of the churchs decoration, during this time, the complex began to seriously deteriorate. When the Jesuits received permission to return to colonial Mexico, fifty years later in 1816 and they worked to rebuild both the church and the school, with much of the physical reconstruction done by Cristóbal Rodríguez. However, San Pedro y San Pablo College never returned to its function, shortly after Mexican independence was first declared in 1821, several important events occurred in the church building. In 1823, after proclaiming the independence of Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide held meetings here which led to the promulgation of the Reglamento Provisional del Imperio. In the following year, the sessions of the Constitutional Congress were held here. After Iturbides short reign as emperor, Guadalupe Victoria was sworn in as the first president of Mexico here, the church reopened for worship from 1832 to 1850, but then closed to become the library of San Gregorio College. During this time, the Virgin of Loreto image of Mexico City was here from 1832 to 1850 when it was thought that the Nuestra Señora de Loreto Church it belonged to might collapse

34.
New Spain
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New Spain was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, after 1535 the colony was governed by the Viceroy of New Spain, an appointed minister of the King of Spain, who ruled as monarch over the colony. The capital of New Spain was Mexico City and it developed highly regional divisions, which reflect the impact of climate, topography, the presence or absence of dense indigenous populations, and the presence or absence of mineral resources. The areas of central and southern Mexico had dense indigenous populations with complex social, political, silver mining not only became the engine of the economy of New Spain, but vastly enriched Spain, and transformed the global economy. New Spain was the New World terminus of the Philippine trade, although New Spain was a dependency of Spain, it was a kingdom not a colony, subject to the presiding monarch on the Iberian Peninsula. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him and it was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the New World was achieved. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535 in the Kingdom of New Spain and it was the first New World viceroyalty and one of only two in the Spanish empire until the 18th century Bourbon Reforms. The Spanish Empire comprised the territories in the north overseas Septentrion, from North America, to the west of the continent, New Spain also included the Spanish East Indies. To the east of the continent, it included the Spanish West Indies and this was not occupied by many Spanish settlers and were considered more marginal to Spanish interests than the most densely populated and lucrative areas of central Mexico. To shore up its claims in North America starting in the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest explored and claimed the coast of what is now British Columbia and Alaska. The indigenous societies of Mesoamerica brought under Spanish control were of unprecedented complexity, the societies could provide the conquistadors, especially Hernán Cortés, a base from which the conquerors could become autonomous, or even independent, of the Crown. As a result, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, since the time of the Catholic Monarchs, central Iberia was governed through councils appointed by the monarch with particular jurisdictions. Thus, the creation of the Council of the Indies became another, the crown had set up the Casa de Contratación in 1503 to regulate contacts between Spain and its overseas possessions. A key function was to gather information about navigation to make trips less risky and they were accompanied by maps of the area discussed, many of which were drawn by indigenous artists. The Francisco Hernández Expedition, the first scientific expedition to the New World, was sent to gather information medicinal plants, an earlier Audiencia had been established in Santo Domingo in 1526 to deal with the Caribbean settlements. That Audiencia, housed in the Casa Reales in Santo Domingo, was charged with encouraging further exploration, management by the Audiencia, which was expected to make executive decisions as a body, proved unwieldy. Therefore, in 1535, King Charles V named Don Antonio de Mendoza as the first Viceroy of New Spain. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 opened up the vast territories of South America to further conquests, the Crown established an independent Viceroyalty of Peru there in 1540

35.
Francisco Javier Clavijero
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Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray, was a Mexican Jesuit teacher, scholar and historian. He was born in Veracruz of a Spanish father and a Criolla mother and his father worked for the Spanish crown, and was transferred with his family from one town to another. Most of the posts were to locations with a strong indigenous presence. The family lived at times in Teziutlán, Puebla and later in Jamiltepec. There was no mountain, dark cave, pleasant valley, spring, brook. He began his studies in Puebla, at the college of San Jerónimo for grammar, upon completion of these studies, he entered a seminary in Puebla, Puebla to study for the priesthood, but he soon decided to become a Jesuit instead. In February 1748 he transferred to a Jesuit college in Tepotzotlán, there he continued to study Latin and also learned ancient Greek, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, and English. In 1751 he was sent back to Puebla for further studies in philosophy, here he was introduced to the works of such contemporary thinkers as Descartes, Newton, and Leibniz. Next he was sent to Mexico City, to complete his theological and philosophical studies at the Colegio de San Pedro y Pablo, while still a student, he began teaching, and was made prefect of the Colegio de San Ildefonso. Later he was appointed to the chair of rhetoric in the Seminario Mayor of the Jesuits, in 1754, Clavijero was ordained a priest. He began to teach at the Colegio de San Gregorio, founded at the beginning of the era to teach Indian youth. Nevertheless, his time at San Gregorio was not without problems, Clavijero followed Sigüenza as an example in his investigations, and was very pleased with Sigüenzas benevolence to and love of the Indians. He also admired much of the culture of the Indians before their contact with Europeans, Clavijero never ceased to try to read the ideograms in diego luna. Clavijero was transferred to the Colegio de San Javier in Puebla and he taught there for three years. In 1764 he was transferred again, to Valladolid, to teach philosophy in the seminary there, more of a rationalist in philosophy than his predecessors, he was an innovator in the field. Good work in Valladolid got him promoted to the position in Guadalajara. It was in Guadalajara that he finished his treatise Physica Particularis, when Clavijero left the colony, he went first to Ferrara, Italy, but soon relocated to Bologna, Italy, where he lived the rest of his life. In Italy he devoted his time to his historical investigations, although he no longer had access to the Aztec codices, the reference works, and the accounts of the first Spanish conquistadors, he retained in his memory the information from his earlier studies

36.
Francisco Javier Alegre
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Francisco Xavier Alegre was a Jesuit scholar, translator, and historian of New Spain. Alegre was born in Veracruz, New Spain and he studied philosophy in the Royal College of San Ignacio in Puebla, then canon and civil law in Mexico City and theology in Angelópolis. On March 19,1747 he entered the novitiate with the Company of Jesus in Tepozotlán, according to his own account, he learned Italian, Greek, Hebrew and Náhuatl. He was able to preach in Náhuatl and he was a dedicated scholar of theology, history, mathematics, and especially classical literature. He later taught grammar in Mexico City, and during those years he learned French, for reasons of health he returned to Veracruz, where he taught for two years. He then returned to Mexico City to take an examination in theology and he was sent to Havana, where he taught rhetoric and philosophy for seven years. On leaving Havana, he went to Mérida, to the Jesuit college there and he took over the work on the Historia de la provincia begun by Father Francisco de Florencia. He continued work on this history when he moved to the Royal College, in less than three years, he finished the Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España. This work was on the point of being published when the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish dominions, when he left New Spain, the manuscript and his sources remained behind. Alegre died of apoplexy near Bologna, Italy, in 1788, some of his works remained unpublished at his death. In exile, he established himself in Bologna, Italy, and there he rewrote his Historia from memory and it was published in Mexico in 1841-1842. He also wrote 18 books, published together under the title Instituciones teológicas and his literary works included Alexandrias, a short epic poem about the conquest of Tyre by Alexander the Great and a Latin eclogue entitled Nysus. He also published a Latin translation of the Iliad, at Bologna in 1776 and, after revisions and he translated the first three cantos of Nicolas Boileaus LArt poétique into Spanish. He left quite a number of works, mostly translations of classics. But the work for which he is noted is his History of the Society of Jesus in New Spain. He published Carta geográfica del hemisferio mexicano, which introduced some information about New Spain previously unknown to European scholars, in 1889, Joaquín García Icazbaleta published his lyrical works under the title Opúsculos inéditos latinos y castellanos del P. Francisco Xavier Alegre. His Latin writing style was pure and classical, comparing well with theologians of the Renaissance and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. article name needed. Alegre, Francisco Javier, Enciclopedia de México, v.1, gonzález Peña, Carlos, Historia de la literature mexicana